In December 1995, some 1,200 political prisoners
in Syria were released pursuant to an amnesty marking the twenty-fifth
anniversary of the rule of president Hafez al-Asad, and additional prisoner
releases were under consideration. It was widely reported that most, if not all,
of the released prisoners were members or supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Dr. Hasan al-Huwaydi, a Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader based in Jordan,
estimated the number of released prisoners at 1,500, although he noted in
December 1995 that the group did not receive official lists of those released
and that its statistics were incomplete.

These releases, while a welcome human rights
development, have been marred by reports that some sentenced political prisoners
continue to be pressured to sign statements of support for the government, and
repudiate their past political activities, as a condition for release.
Furthermore, twenty-one prisoners who refused to sign such statements were
recently transferred to Tadmor military prison, a facility infamous throughout
Syria for the extremely brutal abuses that have occurred there since 1980. These
prisoners were not Islamists, but members of two unauthorized leftist political
groups -- the Party for Communist Action, and the Communist Party-Political
Bureau. They had all been tried by the state security court in 1994 -- on
vaguely formulated offenses such as "opposing the goals of the revolution" and
"membership in a secret organization created to change the economic or social
structure of the state" -- and sentenced harshly to prison terms ranging from
eight years to fifteen years.

In February 1996, Human Rights Watch/Middle East
wrote to Syrian President Hafez al-Asad, protesting the transfer to Tadmor of
political prisoners who refused to sign "loyalty oaths." We called on President
Asad to order an immediate halt to these practices, which violate international
law, and to release all persons imprisoned in Syria because they exercised their
right to peaceful freedom of expression and freedom of association.

We are issuing this report for two reasons. The
Syrian government earns praise when political prisoners are released because
such actions are viewed as an indicator of an improving human rights picture. We
believe, however, that the U.S., the European Union states, and other members of
the international community should be reminded that prisoner releases in Syria
continue to occur in an atmosphere of formidable intimidation by the security
apparatus, designed to discourage dissidents from undertaking independent
political activity upon release.

Secondly, Human Rights Watch/Middle East
believes that there must be a process of accountability for the gross human
rights abuses that have occurred at Tadmor military prison since the early
1980s, from deaths under torture to summary executions on a massive scale. The
government of Hafez al-Asad cannot turn a new page with respect to its human
rights record unless there is accountability for the depradations at Tadmor.
Families suffer from the lack of transparency that continues to mark the
government's approach to information about civilian detainees, sentenced
prisoners, and deaths in custody at this military prison.

Families still do not know the circumstances of
the deaths of relatives who were imprisoned and held there incommunicado for
long years. To our knowledge, there has never been a public accounting of the
fate of civilians who were executed at the prison throughout the 1980s or
disclosure of where their bodies were buried. Families of victims who died under
torture, or from medical neglect, similarly continue to suffer from a lack
information about the circumstances that led to the deaths of their loved ones.
For the families of all those who died at Tadmor, many unanswered questions
remain and the past is still an open book. Tadmor prison was and still is under
the command of Syrian military officers, some of whom have moved on to other
positions of responsibility. Gross human rights abuses carried out during their
tenure at Tadmor should be investigated, and these officers should be held
accountable and prosecuted for transgressions of Syrian and international
law.

RECOMMENDATIONS

To the Syrian Government:

· Release all prisoners in Syria who are
detained or serving sentences because they exercised the right to freedom of
expression and freedom of association, unless such prisoners are explicity
charged with weapons-related offenses, with participating in the planning or
execution of acts of violence, or with other criminal offenses compatible with
respect for internationally recognized human rights. If so charged, they are
entitled to a fair trial in which their due process rights are
safeguarded.

· Take immediate steps to end the intimidation
of political prisoners by the security apparatus, including the ongoing practice
of pressuring sentenced political prisoners to sign "loyalty oaths" to the
government as a condition for release.

· Discontinue the practice of transferring
civilian prisoners to Tadmor military prison, and relocate the remaining
civilian inmates at Tadmor and other military facilities --such as Mezze prison
-- to civil prisons that are under the full supervision of the Ministry of
Justice and where there are procedures for periodic family visits.

· Make public the names of the civilian
prisoners who remain incarcerated at Tadmor prison. This accounting should
include each prisoner's date and place of birth, date of arrest, and -- for all
sentenced civilian prisoners -- the place and dates of trial, the name of the
court and the presiding judge, the charges against the defendant, and the date
and description of the court's sentence.

· Permit families, lawyers and nongovernmental
organizations access on a regular basis to the remaining civilian prisoners in
Tadmor until arrangements are made for their transfer to civil prisons.

· Provide family members with full details about
the circumstances of the death of relatives at Tadmor prison, including death
certificates and medical records.

· Publicly release the names of the civilian
prisoners who were executed at Tadmor military prison over the last sixteen
years, along with the following information for each prisoner who was condemned
to death: date and place of birth, date of arrest, the place and dates of trial,
the name of the court and the presiding judge, the charges against the
defendant, the date and description of the court's sentence, the date and place
of execution, and -- in cases where bodies were not returned to the families --
the place of burial.

· Publicly release the names of the civilian
prisoners who died under other circumstances at Tadmor military prison over the
last sixteen years, along with the following information for each prisoner: date
and place of birth, date of arrest, date of transfer to Tadmor, complete medical
records, death certificate and cause of death, and -- in cases where bodies were
not returned to the families -- the place of burial.

· Investigate and prosecute, to the fullest
extent of the law, the military officers in positions of responsibility at
Tadmor prison when prisoners died from torture and medical neglect.

To the U.S. Government

· Discontinue the policy of public silence
concerning the human rights record of the Asad government, and direct
appropriate U.S. State Department officials to express publicly the U.S.
government's concern about specific rights abuses that have taken place and
continue to occur in Syria.

· Raise the issues discussed in this report with
Syrian officials at the highest levels, and press for the adoption of its
recommendations.

· Vigorously urge Syrian authorities to remove
civilian prisoners from all facilities administered by military personnel,
including Tadmor and Mezze prisons, and begin the process of accounting for
those civilians who were executed, or died in other circumstances, at Tadmor
prison over the past sixteen years.

· Encourage the Syrian government to take
appropriate legal measures to decriminalize peaceful political activity in
Syria, including revision of the vague and overbroad statutes in the emergency
law and penal code which are used to prosecute individuals for the peaceful
exercise of their right to freedom of expression and freedom of
association.

· Inform Syrian authorities that measurable
progress on these matters will be reflected in the U.S. government's assessment
of human rights conditions in Syria.

To the European Union and its Member
States

· The European Council of Ministers, the
European Commission, and the European Parliament should vigorously urge Syrian
authorities to remove civilian prisoners from all facilities administered by
military personnel, including Tadmor and Mezze prisons, and begin the process of
accounting for those civilians who were executed, or died in other
circumstances, at Tadmor prison over the past sixteen years.

· The European Council of Ministers, the
European Commission, and the European Parliament should encourage the Syrian
government to take appropriate legal measures to decriminalize peaceful
political activity in Syria, including revision of the vague and overbroad
statutes in the emergency law and penal code which are used to prosecute
individuals for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression
and freedom of association.

· The European Council of Ministers and the
European Commission should, without any further delay, present the progress
report on human rights in Syria to the European Parliament, in accordance with
the commitment made by the Commission during the debate on the Fourth Protocol
on financial and technical cooperation with Syria in December 1993.

· Member states should press for the adoption of
the recommendations in this report in bilateral and European Union discussions
with Syrian government officials.

· In any visits to Syria by European Union
officials, the recommendations outlined in this report must be discussed with
Syrian government officials and pursued with determination.

· Member states should show restraint in arms
export policy toward Syria until the Asad government makes measurable progress
on the recommendations in this report. Human Rights Watch makes this
recommendation based on the common criteria for arms exports agreed to by the
European Council in its Declaration on Non-proliferation and Arms Exports issued
at its 1991 Luxembourg meeting and in the conclusions of its 1992 Lisbonmeeting.
These common criteria include the respect of human rights on the part of the
country of final destination.

To the United Nations:

· The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
should investigate the situation in Syria and, in particular, examine the cases
discussed in this report.

PRESSURE ON POLITICAL
PRISONERS PRIOR TO RELEASE:

THE PRACTICE
CONTINUES

Human Rights Watch/Middle East reported in 1995
that pressure on political prisoners by Syria's security apparatus to "give up
politics" begins prior to their release.1 We learned that
some political prisoners had been approached by a special committee of officers
from Political Security, one of the internal security forces, to sign written
pledges of allegiance to the Asad government and promise to abandon opposition
political activities as conditions for release.

One former prisoner, who had been detained
without charge since 1986, told us that in December 1991, he and other prisoners
were brought in groups of fifteen to Political Security. They were informed that
they would be released, pursuant to an amnesty, but first had to sign a
typewritten statement. The former prisoner, who was a member of an unauthorized
secular political party, said that the statement contained the following
pledges:

[T]o cooperate with the regime and defend its
political leadership; to cooperate with the security apparatuses and inform them
of any communications addressed to me; and to abandon political work and
withdraw from the party.

He refused to sign this document and, as a
consequence, was not released in the amnesty. He was detained without charge for
another two and a half years, and then was referred to the state security court,
where he was tried and sentenced on vaguely formulated criminal charges such as
"opposing the goals of the revolution" and membership in a secret organization
"established to change the economic or social structure of the state or the
fundamental fabric of society."2

This intimidating practice is continuing. In
January 1996, Amnesty International reported the names of twenty-one political
prisoners who were recently transferred to Tadmor military prison because they
refused to sign similar statements.3 Most of them were
detained without charge for lengthy periods for alleged membership in either the
Party for Communist Action or the Communist Party-Political Bureau, both of
which are unauthorized political groups in Syria. Some of these prisoners were
arrested as long ago as 1980, and held without charge for over a decade. All
twenty-one were tried by the state security court in 1994, in proceedings that
did not meet international standards for a fair trial. They were sentenced to
harsh prison terms ranging from eight years to fifteen years for "opposing the
goals of the revolution" andmembership in secret organizations "established to
change the economic or social structure of the state or the fundamental fabric
of society."4

Almost half of the twenty-one men transferred to
Tadmor have served, or are close to completing, their full terms of
imprisonment. Their names are:

· Abdel Karim `Issa, Yassin al-Haj Salih, and
Yusha al-Khatib, arrested in 1980. According to our information, they were not
sentenced by the security court until April 1994, when each of them received
terms of fifteen years. These men should have been released no later than the
end of December 1995.

· Safwan `Akkash, who was arrested in 1981 and
sentenced to fifteen years by the security court in April 1994, should be
released this year.

· Firas Yunis, Usama `Ashour al-'Askari, and
Mustafa al-Hussein -- all arrested in 1982 and sentenced to fifteen years by the
security court in 1994 -- should be released next year.

· Bassam Bedour and Taysir Hasoun, both arrested
in 1989 and sentenced to eight years by the security court in 1994, also should
be released next year.

Syrian authorities violate the right of every
person to freedom of thought and to hold opinions without interference by
conditioning his or her release from prison on the signing of a loyalty oath.5 Once prisoners
are informed that their freedom depends on endorsing a particular political
viewpoint, their continued imprisonment constitutes a form of discrimination on
the basis of their beliefs -- regardless of the acts for which they were
initially imprisoned. Such ideological litmus tests are objectionable because
they show that the criminal justice process is not based on objectively defined
criminal conduct, but is openly used as a weapon to intimidate and silence
political opponents of the state. Loyalty oaths and forced recantation of one's
beliefs should not be factors in the government's deciding issues of amnesty,
pardon, or early release.

Such procedures violate the provision in the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that all persons are equal
before the law, by effectively making an individual's political opinions the
deciding factor in amnesty or release.6 Where
imprisonment of an individual would be justified at all under international law,
requiring a loyalty oath as a condition of timely release would also violate the
right not be be deprived of one's liberty arbitrarily.7

In a letter to President Asad dated February 14,
1996, Human Rights Watch/Middle East requested information about the reasons for
the transfer of these twenty-one prisoners to Tadmor military prison. We
protested their intimidation at the hands of internal security forces, and their
punishment by transfer to Tadmor, for asserting the right to freedom of thought
and the right to hold opinions without interference. We urged that they be
released unconditionally, unless theyare charged with criminal offenses
compatible with respect for internationally recognized human rights. As of the
date of the publication of this report, we have not received a reply to the
letter from Syrian authorities.

This was not the first time that political
prisoners were transferred to Tadmor, to a prison regime considered punitive
even within Syria's harsh prison system. In 1988, nine members of the central
commitee of the Party for Communist Action (PCA) were moved to Tadmor and held
there for five years, until May 1992, when they were transferred to Sednaya, a
civil prison north of Damascus, where conditions are better and regular family
visits are permitted.8 More recently, in
1993, thirty-three-year-old writer and human rights activist Nizar Nayouf was
transferred to Tadmor. Detained in January 1992, he was convicted by the state
security court and sentenced to ten years imprisonment in March 1992, following
an unfair trial.9

Nayouf was held in Tadmor for six months, in
apparent retaliation for his hunger strikes at Sednaya prison. He was first held
in Sednaya prison with nine co-defendants from the Committees for the Defense of
Democratic Freedoms and Human Rights in Syria (CDF), who were sentenced to
prison terms ranging from five to nine years. According to information received
by Human Rights Watch/Middle East, Nayouf went on hunger strike three times at
Sednaya prison and then, in February 1993, was moved to Tadmor. Conditions at
Tadmor were harsh. Nayouf was not provided with medical care or medication for
continuing pain in his right leg, which had been injured when he was tortured
under interrogation after his arrest and which made it difficult for him to walk
unassisted. After six months at Tadmor, Nayouf's punishment continued. He was
not returned to Sednaya prison, but was placed in an isolation cell in Mezze
military prison in Damascus.10

The continuing practice of moving to Tadmor
military prison civilian political prisoners who have not bent to the will of
Syria's internal security forces is a cause for urgent concern. Information is
slowly emerging about gross human rights abuses that were committed at this
facility, which held as many as 6,500 civilian prisoners in the 1980s and about
2,500 in 1992. Thus thousands of inmates were sealed off from the outside world
for over a decade. The Syrian government should immediately halt the transfer of
political prisoners to Tadmor. Instead, it should make public the names of those
civilians who remain incarcerated in this facility, and permit families,
lawyers, and nongovernmental organizations access to these prisoners on a
regular basis until arrangements are made for their transfer as soon as possible
to civil prisons with full oversight of the Ministry of Justice.

ABUSES AT TADMOR
MILITARY PRISON:

"THE KINGDOM OF DEATH
AND MADNESS"

Tadmor military prison is located in the
Palmyrene desert approximately 200 kilometers northeast of Damascus. The
facility is exempt from oversight of the Ministry of Justice, which is
responsible for the supervision of civil prisons. Tadmor is infamous throughout
Syria not only for its harsh conditions but also for the depradations against
civilianpolitical prisoners that have occurred within its walls since 1980, such
as torture and summary executions. Syrian poet Faraj Beraqdar -- who has been
detained as a political prisoner since March 1987 and was held in Tadmor for
five years, from 1988 to 1992 -- described the prison as a "kingdom of death and
madness."11

An estimated 500 prisoners were killed in cold
blood at Tadmor on June 27, 1980, the day after an assassination attempt in
Damascus on the life of President Hafez al-Asad. Commando forces from the
Defense Brigades and the 138th Security Brigade were helicoptered to the prison
and murdered prisoners in their dormitories.12 It is unknown
how many other civilian prisoners at Tadmor subsequently were tried and
sentenced there by an exceptional military field court, in grossly unfair
proceedings, and how many of those sentenced to death by the court were executed
by hanging.13
Nor is it known how many died from torture or medical neglect.

The ferocious brutality unleashed against
civilian prisoners at Tadmor had its origins in a bloody political context.
Discontent simmered in Syria following the Asad government's military
intervention in the Lebanese civil war in 1976 on the side of right-wing
Christian militias against Lebanese leftist and Palestinian forces. A
broad-based secular movement inside Syria began to agitate for democracy and the
rule of law. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood was gaining increased
support, and its underground armed factions carried out acts of political
violence, targeting public buildings, military posts, and government officials
and leading supporters. The anti-regime violence included the murder of
eighty-three young `Alawi14 military cadets
at an artillery school in Aleppo in June 1979, and three car bomb attacks in
Damascus between August and November 1980 that killed several hundred people. In
July 1980, membership in the Muslim Brotherhood was made a capital offense
punishable by death, with the ratification of Law No. 49.

Since 1980, authorities incarcerated thousands
of civilian detainees at Tadmor, including untold numbers detained solely on
political grounds. Prisoners of every political stripe have been held there,
from pro-Iraqi Ba'thists to suspected members and supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Hundreds of Palestinians were imprisoned at Tadmor as well.
Severely overcrowded at times, the facility held up to 6,500 civilian
prisoners.

Tadmor was reportedly built by the French as a
military barracks. According to testimony obtained by Human Rights Watch/Middle
East from former inmates, the part of Tadmor used to house civilian political
prisoners containsforty-two one-story dormitories and smaller cells configured
around seven courtyards.15 The courtyards
are covered overhead with barbed wire, except Courtyards One and Two. Courtyard
Five, heavily covered with barbed wire because the cells abut the exterior wall,
is flanked by twenty-eight punishment cells on one side and rooms for "special
cases" on the other. Dormitory Four, which opens to Courtyard One, is the
largest, and was a theater when Tadmor was used as a barracks. "It still has the
stage," a former prisoner told us. This dormitory, measuring about eight by
twenty-four meters, typically held between 200 and 250 men. The dormitories
surrounding Courtyard Seven were used to isolate prisoners with tuberculosis,
beginning in 1985.16

Arbitrary Arrest and Long-Term
Detention

Among those arbitrarily arrested and brought to
Tadmor in the early 1980s were large numbers of young men, including teenagers,
who were relatives, friends or acquaintances of suspected or known Muslim
Brothers, or individuals whose names were elicited when suspects were tortured
during interrogation. One former prisoner, who was detained at Tadmor from 1983
to 1987, told us that as many as 2,000 of these young men were held together in
special dormitories, separated from adults. In March 1995, Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood sources in Jordan said that they had compiled the names of 932
students -- who were between the ages of sixteen and twenty years old at the
time of arrest in the early 1980s -- whom they believed to be alive and
imprisoned in Syria as of January 1995.17 Some of these
former students, we later learned, were among the 500 to 600 political prisoners
released by authorities in March 1995. We asked Syrian authorities in Damascus
for a list of these released prisoners, but to date we have not received this
information.

One of these students, Bara al-Sarraj, was
twenty years old when he was abducted by plainclothes security officers from a
lecture hall at the University of Damascus on March 5, 1984. His case is
illustrative of the Syrian government's complete lack of transparency with
respect to political suspects taken into custody and the paucity of information
provided to family members and other governments who inquire about specific
cases.

At the time of his arrest, Bara al-Sarraj was a
student in the electrical engineering department at the university, where his
twin brother studied medicine. Human Rights Watch/Middle East learned about the
case from Bara's twin, Dr. Al Sarraj, who now lives and practices medicine in
the U.S. "He was never involved in any activity. Our circle of friends was not
involved in politics," Dr. Sarraj told us. After his arrest, Bara was first held
by Military Intelligence in the city of Hama. For twenty days, the family heard
nothing about his whereabouts, but then learned through a well-placed source
that Bara was under interrogation. The family used connections to visit Bara at
an underground detention center. "He was pale and shaky," his brother recalled.
"He whispered to my mother that people were tortured at night and that he could
not sleep."

The family managed to visit Bara five times over
the next five months. "Then, all of a sudden, we heard that he was accused of
being a member of the opposition and had been sent to Tadmor prison," his
brother said. This was confirmed by a prisoner, released from Tadmor in 1985,
who contacted the family. Two years later, a senior military officer confided to
Bara's mother that he had seen her son in Damascus, in the Military Intelligence
building next to the medical school. Before the family left Syria in 1988, they
learned -- unofficially -- from a high-ranking officer in Military Intelligence
that Bara's file was empty. "He told us that there were no charges, no trial,
but that my brother had beenlabelled a member of the opposition. The officer
said that his fate was in the hands of Hafez al-Asad," his brother said.18

Beginning in 1991, Dr. Sarraj, Bara's brother,
and colleagues in the U.S. medical community mobilized prominent members of
Congress to press the U.S. State Department to make inquiries about Bara's case.
But it proved impossible to obtain information from Syrian authorities. "I
regret that we cannot confirm the information contained in your letter about the
nature of Mr. al-Sarraj's offense or the condition of his imprisonment," U.S.
Ambassador to Syria Christopher Ross wrote to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in November
1991. "The Syrian government considers expressions of interest by other
governments in human rights cases as interference in Syria's internal affairs."
Sen. Alan Dixon received a similar response from the State Department in
December 1991: "It has been virtually impossible for the U.S. Embassy in
Damascus to obtain any information about individual detainees, especially those
held on political grounds. The Syrian government does not respond to requests
for such information, terming them interference in Syria's internal affairs." In
1994, however, the Syrian embassy in Washington, D.C., did provide some
information to the State Department about al-Sarraj. "He was arrested on March
5, 1984, because of his belonging to an armed terrorist group which committed
several assassinations and explosions in Syria. He was referred to the Court on
July 25, 1984 and was condemned to 20 years in prison on April 24, 1989." The
letter did not name the court to which al-Sarraj had been referred, nor did it
explain the reason for the long period of time between his referral to the court
and its sentence.19

In the summer of 1993, the Sarraj family finally
learned through informal contacts in Syria that Bara had been moved from Tadmor
to Sednaya prison. They were holding out hope that, after more than a decade,
this move may have been an indication that authorities were preparing to release
him. In a letter to Interior Minister Muhamed Harba dated April 1, 1995, and
hand delivered to his office in Damascus, Human Rights Watch/Middle East
requested permission to visit Bara al-Saraj in Sednaya prison. The request was
refused.

Torture

Inmates at Tadmor throughout the 1980s were
subjected systematically to torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and
degrading treatment.20 Released
prisoners interviewed by Human Rights Watch/Middle East have unanimously agreed
that since the early 1980s known or suspected Islamists were consistently
singled out for the most brutal treatment at Tadmor. Some of them did not
survive the prison's harsh regimen. The case of one of them, Ahmad Khoula, who
was arrested in 1980 and died in Tadmor in 1994, is discussed below.21 It is difficult
to assess the extent to which torture and other forms of mistreatment continue
at Tadmor today because access to the facility is impossible. Our requests to
Syrian government officials in 1995 to visit Tadmor were denied.

A political prisoner from an unauthorized
secular political group, who was transferred from Tadmor to Sednaya prison in
May 1992, estimated that at that time there were about 2,500 prisoners in the
facility, most of them suspected Muslim Brotherhood members, supporters or
relatives. This prisoner, who was in medical school at the time of his arrest in
1987, described their treatment as "horrific." He explained: "They were beaten
daily. We could hear the voices of people being beaten and tortured. Their
health conditions were poor."22

In a separate interview, a former prisoner from
an unauthorized secular political party who was held at Tadmor from 1983 to
1987, described the brutality there as "unbelievable." He elaborated:

They used incredible methods to kill people.
Courtyard Four had a raised basin, for plantings. Tens of people died there.
They were hit with the sharp edge of an axe, and then cut up into pieces.
Prisoners were also roped and dragged until they died. This would be done
randomly, to those who were found innocent by the court as well as to those who
were sentenced to death. Whenever a Muslim Brother left the dormitory, we would
never be sure if he was coming back. Courtyard Five was the punishment
courtyard. They would whip prisoners selected at random. Sometimes there were
organized beatings or falaqa23 on a specific
prisoner.24

Newly arrived inmates were first brought to
Courtyard One. "We would try to count the number of men from their footsteps,"
said a former prisoner who was held in Dormitory One during his first six months
at Tadmor. He added that the men were brutally beaten with metal pipes and large
pieces of wood, and that some died from the injuries before reaching the
dormitories. He said that this type of "reception" was common between 1980 and
1982. Other former prisoners have described hours of beating and whipping upon
arrival at the prison. "Everyone was in a bad condition, their legs bleeding and
covered with wounds, as were other parts of their bodies. The pain was very
intense, and none of the prisoners was able to stand up as a result....Some of
the prisoners died during the `reception,'" a former prisoner told Amnesty
International in the 1980s.25

The brutality continued in later years. Another
former prisoner recounted his transfer to Tadmor in November 1987 with
forty-seven other detainees who had been held with him in an underground
detention facility in Damascus run by Military Interrogation, a branch of
Military Intelligence, one the internal security forces. He told us that they
were blindfolded, manacled in pairs, and transported to Tadmor in a bus with
armed guards. When the bus arrived at the prison gate, military policemen took
over. The prisoners were herded into a hallway, where the manacles were removed.
The men were called by name, and beaten in a martial arts style. After a body
search and haircuts, they were suspended in tires and whipped with hundreds of
lashes.26 The
prisoners were then dispersed to various courtyards and specific dormitories.
The whipping was so severe that for one week the men could move only with great
difficulty, this former prisoner said.27

Whipping was also used by prison personnel to
coerce confessions. A lawyer in Latakia told us about his interview in April
1995 with a recently released prisoner who was detained at Tadmor after his
arrest in 1980, when he was fifteen years old. He was held there without charge
for eleven years, and then was asked to sign a prepared confession, admitting to
crimes that he said he had not committed. He refused. He was held for another
year, and whipped each morning, according to the lawyer. At the end of the year,
he was again asked to sign the confession. He again refused, and once more was
subjected to whipping. When he was summoned again to sign the confession, he
agreed. "He finally realized that he would never leave Tadmor if he did not
sign," the lawyer said.28

Prisoners were permitted to leave the
dormitories daily for thirty minutes of fresh air in the courtyards, according
to a former detainee who was transferred to Tadmor in 1987 and spent eight years
there. Noting that this was the onlytime outside their cells when prisoners were
not required to wear blindfolds, he said that guards beat prisoners in the
courtyards with pipes, cables, and pieces of wood.29

A variety of brutal techniques were used to
break inmate solidarity. Prisoners were asked to inform on their cellmates and,
if they refused, would be whipped violently until they fainted. One former
long-term prisoner told us that inmates in the crowded dormitories were ordered
to sleep only on one side of their bodies. In the morning, the prisonr in charge
of each dormitory -- an inmate selected by the prison administration -- would be
asked to name ten cellmates who had not slept according to the instructions. It
was a no-win situation: if the prisoner in charge did not provide ten names, he
himself would be beaten until he lost consciousness.30

It appears that there was some recognition on
the part of authorities of the cumulative effect of the regimen of brutal abuse,
combined with inadequate food and medical care, on prisoners at Tadmor. In order
to reduce evidence of mistreatment, and upgrade the physical and psychological
condition of inmates prior to release, they have been transferred from Tadmor to
facilities where conditions were less abusive. A former prisoner described the
condition of arriving prisoners from Tadmor:

I met a group of them at Sheikh Hassan prison
[after they had been transferred there from Tadmor]. They were pale and their
bones were sticking out. They reminded me of survivors of Nazi concentration
camps. For two months, we tried to coax them just to look at us when they spoke.
They always kept their heads and eyes down when they talked, because this was
what they had to do when speaking to guards at Tadmor.31

In October 1987, according to another former
prisoner who was held at that time in Sednaya prison near Damascus, some
suspected Islamists were transferred there from Tadmor. He explained that these
were men who had been found innocent by field courts or whose sentences were not
lengthy.32 They
were not released until late 1991.

Summary Justice: Military Field Court
Trials

Civilian political prisoners, including
teenagers, were tried and sentenced at Tadmor by closed-door military field
courts throughout the 1980s. Human Rights Watch/Middle East obtained a copy of a
secret February 1983 decree, issued by the general command of the Syrian army
and armed forces, that ordered the formation and staffing of field courts
nationwide.33

By all accounts, the proceedings of these courts
were perfunctory, lasting seconds or minutes, and wholly unfair, in absolute
disregard of international standards of minimum fairness.34 A Syrian
intellectual told us that his brother had been sentenced by the field court at
Tadmor in the early 1980s:

His trial lasted for five seconds. They had a
hood over his head. The judge asked him one question: "Is this your name?" My
brother said yes. Then the judge told him: We have sentenced you to life in
prison.35

One former political prisoner, who was released
in 1995, spent eight years in Tadmor and was tried there by a field court in
1988. He described how detainees were summoned to the court. Soldiers knocked on
cell doors, calling out names and telling the prisoners to wear their slippers
and blindfolds.36 "My number for
court was thirty-eight. They placed me in a hallway with my back against the
wall, and tugged on my hand when it was my turn. They brought in about five of
us at a time. Inside, I was allowed to take off the blindfold," he told us. He
said that army Gen. Hassan al-Qa'qa presided, in the presence of the prison
warden and his assistant. The judge informed him that he was before a court, and
instructed him to sit down in a small chair. The entire proceeding took only a
few minutes. After asking the prisoner for his name, date of birth and other
personal information, the judge said that he was accused of intent to commit
criminal activities. The prisoner denied all the charges, the judge responded
that he was "a liar," and told him to leave the court. He said that he was never
informed of the court's verdict.37

Another former prisoner, in a separate
interview, also told us that the prison director attended the field court
trials. "The sentences were according to whim. The files would be empty. A
person could be sentenced to death simply because he was a member of a certain
family," he said.38 Families in
Hama39 that were
targeted, according to one well-informed clandestine political activist from
that city, included the Alawani, Jawad, Arnaout, Jumbaz, Hawa, Qumbar and
Taifour. He added: "It is hard to find a family in Hama that does not have
relatives missing until now. There has never been an accounting of those killed
or disappeared in the events."40

In April 1995, a lawyer in Latakia told us about
his meeting earlier in the day with five prisoners who had just been released
after imprisonment for over a decade in Tadmor:

They are all from my neighborhood and they all
were juveniles when they were arrested. They were taken from their tenth-grade
examination halls. Their only crime was that they had relatives in the Islamic
groups. Some were tried and sentenced by the field court to six years, the
maximum term for juveniles. But when their sentences expired, they were kept in
prison for seven more years. They were held for over thirteen years.

The lawyer emphasized the unfairness of the
field court proceedings: "They were not really tried. No lawyers attended. The
prisoners were blindfolded. They were informed of their crime, and then they
were sentenced. These were not trials."41

The gross unfairness of these proceedings is
particularly significant in light of the harsh sentences, including the death
penalty, handed out by the military field court. Another lawyer mentioned the
case of Tawfiq al-Weidani from Duma, who was released in March 1995. Al-Weidani
was a sixteen-year-old high school student at the time of his arrest in 1981,
and was sentenced by a field court to fourteen years imprisonment for alleged
membership in the Muslim Brotherhood. He did not have his first family visit
until 1994, after he was transferred from Tadmor to Sednaya prison.42

The field court apparently did find innocent
hundreds of prisoners brought before it, but -- as with men convicted by the
court who had served their full terms -- they were not released. "There were
entire dormitories of people who had been found innocent," a former Tadmor
inmate said. Many of these men reportedly were among the several thousand
released in the late 1991 amnesty, after serving up to eleven years in arbitrary
detention.

Executions

According to testimony collected by Human Rights
Watch/Middle East, executions by hanging were supervised by the prison warden
and a senior army officer who also served as a judge in the prison's field
court. Military policemen, most of them members of President Asad's `Alawi
religious sect, served as the executioners.

A former political prisoner, who was detained in
Tadmor from 1983 until the latter half of 1987, said that executions took place
in a large rectangular area of Courtyard Six, usually after midnight. He said
that between 1980 and 1983, there were executions twice a week, on Tuesdays and
Saturdays, or on Wednesdays and Saturdays: "Each time, between thirty-five and
fifty people were executed, but sometimes there were more." He added: "No family
in Syria has been left untouched by what happened in Tadmor. And the majority of
families still do not know what happened to their relatives." He noted that by
1982 and 1983, executions at the prison were routine: "When prisoners' names
were called, their cellmates would say goodbye to them, and then would just
continue whatever they were doing. Executions had become ordinary." He said that
during the period that he was in Tadmor, "a guard in each courtyard would call
out names. If it was after midnight, you knew that you were about to be
executed. The only times you were called by name at Tadmor were when you were
being summoned to the field court, or when you were going to be
executed."

According to this former prisoner, the largest
"execution party" was on New Year's Eve of 1983-84, when 180 men were hanged.
"They erected fifty of the execution apparatuses, and emptied out one dormitory
to put in ten gallows."43 After this, he
said, the rate of executions declined, and in 1985 the hangings "stopped for a
while." But the executions resumed in 1986, following a wave of political
violence in Damascus and other parts of the country, he told us.44

An eyewitness to some of the executions, who was
detained in Tadmor from November 1987 until March 1995, also said that victims
received no notice and would be called by name. During the executions, by his
account, inmates in the dormitories were forced to lie on their stomachs, with
soldiers watching so that they would not move. This former prisoner said he
witnessed executions when he was moved to Couryard Six, into a dormitory known
as nadweh, whichwas old and dilapidated, with holes in the metal door
facing the courtyard.45 When the
prisoners were ordered onto their stomachs, they would try to lie as close to
the door as possible, in order to see through the holes of the welding. Since
there were so many men in the dormitory, the former prisoner explained, it did
not seem unusual that some of them were lying in front of the door. He told us
that between ten and thirty men would be executed at a time. One day in July
1989, he said, 160 men were executed.46

Another former prisoner said that juvenile
inmates at Tadmor -- most of them fifteen and sixteen years old at the time of
their arrest in the early 1980s -- witnessed many executions. "They would climb
up to the windows and watch. They remember the names of those who were executed.
They told us all about it when we were [later transferred to] Sednaya
prison."

Human Rights Watch/Middle East is unable to
confirm the allegations of former prisoners about thousands of executions at
Tadmor. We believe, however, that there is a burden of accountability on Syrian
authorities to disclose information about the prisoners who were executed at
Tadmor over the last sixteen years. We therefore have recommended to the Syrian
government that it make public the names of the civilian prisoners executed at
Tadmor, along with the following information for each prisoner who was condemned
to death: date and place of birth, date of arrest, the place and dates of trial,
the name of the court and the presiding judge, the charges against the
defendant, the date and description of the court's sentence, the date and place
of execution, and -- in cases where bodies were not returned to families -- the
place of burial.

Executions carried out pursuant to judgments of
the military field court at Tadmor violate the provisions of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The field court deprived those
brought before it of their right to a fair hearing by a competent, independent
and impartial tribunal, including the right to have their convictions and
sentences reviewed by a higher tribunal.47 Trials by an
incompetent court that result in sentences of capital punishment expressly
violate Article 6 of the ICCPR.48

Burial of Victims: Mass
Graves

The bodies of those executed at Tadmor were not
returned to their families, according to testimony of former prisoners whom we
interviewed in 1995. One former political prisoner, who was detained at Tadmor
for eight years, told us that victims of executions, as well as others who died
in the prison, were buried in a valley near the prison. The bodies were
transported to the site by truck, he said. In a separate interview another
former prisoner, who was held at the facility until 1987, said that bodies were
buried in mass graves in a valley known as Wadi al-Kils. He said that the
information about the site was leaked to inmates by military policemen who
buried the victims. He too affirmed that the mass graves were used to bury not
only those executed but also inmates who had died under torture or from
illness.49

Isolation of Inmates

International standards for the treatment of
prisoners mandate that every prisoner has the right to inform his family of his
place of incarceration and to have regular access to family members and
friends.50
Syrian authorities systematically violated these minimum standards by holding
prisoners in Tadmor in almost complete isolation from the outside world. "The
men released with me in 1991, who came from Tadmor, had not seen their families
in eleven years," a former political prisoner told us in May 1995. Another
former prisoner, arrested in 1985 and released ten years later, said that during
his eight years at Tadmor he never had a visit from anyone. His family had
assumed that he was dead and held a mourning ceremony.

A political activist from Hasakeh governorate, a
predominantly Kurdish area in northeastern Syria, told us about two prisoners in
Tadmor from Ras al-'Ain, a town east of Qamishli, who have been held
incommunicado for over a decade:

Shukri Muhamed was detained by Military
Security51 in
1980. He is still in Tadmor and has never had a visit. His family learned that
he was tried by a field court, but his sentence is not known. Ibrahim Muhamed
Kasha was detained by Military Security in 1975. He has had no visits at Tadmor.
His son has finished high school, but does not know his father.52

For some prisoners, family visits were an
arbitrary privilege, and depended on bribery of officials and the politics of
the prisoners, according to former inmates whom we interviewed. Suspected
communists and members of the Democratic Ba'th Party were allowed visitors,
while visits were prohibited for suspected Muslim Brothers and members of the
pro-Iraqi Ba'th Party. Faisal al-Ghanem reportedly was the warden of Tadmor from
1980 to 1984. During his tenure, prisoners were kept in complete isolation. "No
one had visits when he was warden, not even the communists. His mother, who
lived in Latakia, spread rumors that she could organize visits. She would take
money or gold from families, especially relatives of Muslim Brotherhood
[suspects]," said a former prisoner from Damascus.53 In a separate
interview, a former prisoner from Aleppo made a similar allegation: "Ghanem's
mother traded in prison visits. Families paid a quarter-kilo or a half-kilo of
gold, just to see a relative. One family gave a Mercedes [Benz automobile], just
to see their son walk in front of a window."54

For those relatives who managed to obtain
permission to visit, the time allotted was brief. A family member who visited a
relative in 1993 described her experience:

The bus ride from Damascus took four hours. You
get off in the center of town, but the prison is far away, at the end of town.
The checkpoint is twenty meters from the prison gate. They take the permission
[slip] and make you wait. It takes one hour to ninety minutes. Then there is a
thorough search -- nothing is allowed in.

She observed no other relatives visiting
prisoners while she was inside the facility. She met with her relative for
twenty minutes in a room off a small courtyard:

There were three guards, plus an officer from
the military police. They sat with us. When I wanted to give [my relative]
money, they inspected it to be sure that nothing was written on it. Pictures
with writing are not permitted. Pens are not permitted. I could not even give
him a cigarette while we were sitting together.55

According to one former prisoner, the
overwhelming majority of political prisoners remaining in Tadmor are those who
have been sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment or longer, presumably by
military field courts. Beginning in April 1995, he said, authorities permitted
family visits for prisoners serving fifteen-year sentences. Those sentenced to
life imprisonment, on the other hand, appeared to be allowed visitors only if
their relatives bribed officials.56

THE NEED FOR
ACCOUNTABILITY

The release of civilian prisoners who spent long
years at Tadmor military prison in no way exculpates Syrian authorities from
responsibility for the gross human rights abuses that took place within the
walls of this facility. The nightmare continues for families who lost relatives
due to torture, summary execution or death sentences handed down after
perfunctory, unfair military field court trials. Based on testimony that we have
received from former prisoners, the bodies of some of the victims have never
been returned to the families but may be buried in mass graves near Tadmor. The
government of Hafez al-Asad cannot turn a new page with respect to its human
rights record unless there is accountability for the depradations at Tadmor.
Families suffer from the lack of transparency that continues to mark the
government's approach to information about civilian detainees, sentenced
prisoners, and deaths in custody at this military prison.

As recently as October 1994 Syrian authorities
traumatized a family whose relative died in Tadmor. We learned that the body of
Ahmad Khoula was delivered to his family in Aleppo on October 28, 1994. Khoula,
a teacher of Arabic, was thirty-one years old when he was arrested by security
forces in Aleppo on June 5, 1980. His family did not know if he was alive or
dead until over eleven years later, when prisoners released in late 1991 brought
news that Khoula was being held in Tadmor. They told family members that he
walked with a limp because one of his legs, fractured when he was tortured under
interrogation in 1980, had never been properly treated. When Khoula's body was
returned, authorities did not provide the family in Syria with any explanation
about the circumstances of his death or the basis for his detention for over
fourteen years.57

Human Rights Watch views these actions as
unconscionable and unjustifiable. As one step toward the most minimum form of
accountability, Syrian authorities should release the names of the civilian
prisoners who were executed at Tadmor, accompanied by information about date and
place of birth, date of arrest, date of trial, presiding judge, charges and
sentence, date of execution, and, in all cases where bodies were not returned to
families, the place of burial. The names of all prisoners who have died in
custody, including those who died from torture and medical neglect, should also
be released publicly, along with the date and place of birth, date of arrest,
death certificates, complete medical records, and place of burial, in cases
where bodies were not returned to families. Such actions are required to conform
with minimum international standards for the treatment of prisoners, which
specify the following:

Upon the death or serious illness of, or serious
injury to a prisoner, or his removal to an institution for the treatment of
mental affections, the director shall at once inform the spouse, if the prisoner
is married, or the nearest relative and shall in any event inform any other
person previously designated by the prisoner.58

Moreover, the Body of Principles for the
Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment mandates
that authorities investigate and report on all deaths in custody:

Whenever the death or disappearance of a
detained or imprisoned person occurs during his detention or imprisonment, an
inquiry into the cause of death or disappearance shall be held by a judicial or
other authority, either on its own motion or at the instance of a member of the
family of such a person or any person who has knowledge of the case. When
circumstances so warrant, such an inquiry shall be held on the same procedural
basis whenever the death or disappearance occurs shortly after the terminationof
the detention or imprisonment. The findings of such inquiry or a report thereon
shall be made available upon request, unless doing so would jeopardize an
ongoing criminal investigation.59

In the absence of independent institutions in
Syria and a strong human rights movement, and due to the pervasive fear of
security forces reprisals against perceived critics, it is clearly impossible
for local advocates to call publicly for the investigation and prosecution of
the military officers who administered Tadmor prison and either directly ordered
or sanctioned gross human rights abuses against thousands of inmates.
Nevertheless, former prisoners speak bitterly in private about the brutality at
Tadmor, and hold military officers Faisal al-Ghanem and Nazih Ibrahim, in
particular, directly responsible for some of the most depraved behavior.

Faisal al-Ghanem, an `Alawi officer from Latakia
who still serves in the Syrian military, served as warden of Tadmor between 1980
and 1984, according to testimony we received. "Faisal was a butcher," one former
prisoner told us. "He would kill prisoners with his own hands. He would visit
the dormitories every few months. In one of the Muslim Brotherhood dormitories,
a prisoner confronted him and Faisal ordered that he be beaten. The man did not
utter a sound during the beating, so Faisal killed him."60

Ghanem was succeeded by Barakat al-Ish, also an
`Alawi officer, who had been his second in command at the prison. He reportedly
was the director of Tadmor until 1987, when he was transferred to head newly
opened Sednaya prison, a post he held until 1991. (Al-Ish reportedly is now the
director of Mezze prison.) One former prisoner at Tadmor said that there was a
marked difference between the way Ghanem and Ish administered Tadmor:

Ish was considered a humane director by the
prisoners. He tried to restrict the daily torture. He was military, but was more
like an academic, a man of science and a humanitarian. For us [communists] and
the Muslim Brotherhood, he would come and visit and ask about our demands. We
had newspapers, radio, a library with hundreds of books. He would permit these
things in through visits. We even asked him for a television, but he said that
televisions were not permitted in military prisons.

The authority of Ish, however, was reportedly
undermined by his assistant Nazih Ibrahim, an `Alawi officer from Latakia who
reportedly now serves as the first assistant at Sednaya prison. "Ibrahim was
really in charge at Tadmor," the former prisoner told us. "He had the first-hand
contact with the prisoners, and was the liaison between the prisoners and the
prison director. He had the power to punish the prisoners, and people would die
because of his orders."61

Nazih Ibrahim was held to be particularly brutal
with suspected Muslim Brothers. "We would hear him beating them in the courtyard
next to ours, then he would come into our dormitory and chat and laugh with us,
as if everything was normal," a former prisoner told us. This prisoner said he
witnessed Ibrahim's brutality in Courtyard Five, known as the "punishment
courtyard" because of the punishment cells around its perimeter. "It was here
that prisoners were beaten in the morning, afternoon and night, when they went
to get their food." He added that some prisoners died from physical abuse meted
out when they left their cells for air. "They were beaten with cement blocks and
pieces of wood," he said.62 This former
inmate, a soft-spoken and thoughtful activist with an unauthorized secular
political group, strongly recommended that Human Rights Watch call for Nazih
Ibrahim's prosecution.

Ibrahim, former prisoners said, was intelligent
and had an excellent memory. "He could remember the names of 300 to 400
prisoners who had visits. He made money off the prisoners. He would allow
visitors to bring us prohibited materials, then would confiscate them during a
search, and then re-sell them to us," one former prisoner said.63

A former prisoner released from Tadmor in June
1995 told us that Gen.Muhamed Ghaza al-Jihni was the warden of the prison at
least since November 1987, when this prisoner was transferred to the facility.
He said that al-Jihni's assistant was Muhamed Nai'meh.64 As testimony in
this report indicates, abuses took place at Tadmor in 1987 and subsequent
years.

THE RESPONSE OF THE
SYRIAN GOVERNMENT

Syrian government officials continue to pledge
publicly that human rights are respected and the rule of law is upheld in their
country. In a statement before the Third Committee of the United Nations General
Assembly on November 29, 1995, Dr. Fayssal Mekdad, first secretary of the Syrian
mission to the United Nations, said:

The Syrian Arab Republic attaches special
importance to safeguarding and protecting cultural, social, economic, political
and civil rights. This firm position of principle has been entrenched in the
constitution which affirms the right of the citizen to exercise all of his/her
rights. It provides for the primacy of the rule of law and for the independence
of the judiciary in order to preserve its integrity. Moreover, it obligates the
state to defend the security of society and of the individual through the
application of the law and of the judicial acts.

Dr. Mekdad also stated that Syria "has committed
itself to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," and noted that Syria has
ratified over eleven human rights instruments, including the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Human Rights Watch/Middle East wrote to Syrian
president Hafez al-Asad on February 14, 1996, expressing concern about the
continuing pressure on political prisoners prior to release and the punitive
transfer of prisoners to Tadmor military prison. We inquired specifically about
the justification for the recent transfer of civilian political prisoners to
Tadmor. We gave our assurances that any relevant information received from the
Syrian government by March 4, 1996, would be included in this report. The letter
went unanswered.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This report was written by Virginia N. Sherry,
associate director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. It is based primarily on
information collected by Ms. Sherry in Syria and Jordan during fact-finding
missions from March to May 1995. Testimony from Jordan in August 1995 was
obtained by Brian Owsley, an attorney who was the Leonard Sandler Fellow at
Human Rights Watch in 1994-95.

Human Rights Watch/Middle East

Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental
organization established in 1978 to monitor and promote the observance of
internationally recognized human rights in Africa, the Americas, Asia, the
Middle East and among the signatories of the Helsinki accords. It is supported
by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts
no government funds, directly or indirectly. The staff includes Kenneth Roth,
executive director; Cynthia Brown, program director; Holly J. Burkhalter,
advocacy director; Barbara Guglielmo, finance and administration director;
Robert Kimzey, publications director; Jeri Laber, special advisor; Gara
LaMarche, associate director; Lotte Leicht, Brussels office director; Juan
Méndez, general counsel; Susan Osnos, communications director; Jemera Rone,
counsel; and Joanna Weschler, United Nations representative. Robert L. Bernstein
is the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair. Its Middle East
division was established in 1989 to monitor and promote the observance of
internationally recognized human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.
Christopher George is the executive director; Eric Goldstein is the research
director; Joe Stork is the advocacy director; Virginia N. Sherry is associate
director; Fatemeh Ziai is counsel; Elahé Hicks is a consultant; Shira Robinson
and Awali Samara are associates. Gary Sick is the chair of the advisory
committee and Lisa Anderson and Bruce Rabb are vice chairs.

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APPENDIX A

Twenty-One Political Prisoners Transferred to
Tadmor Military Prison

(Note: Prison sentence and date of state
security court judgment appear in parentheses.)

Arrested in 1980

Abdel Karim `Issa (fifteen years, 1994)

Yassin al-Haj Salih, medical school student
(fifteen years, 1994)

Yusha al-Khatib, teacher (fifteen years,
1994)

Arrested in 1981

Safwan `Akkash (fifteen years, 1994)

Arrested in 1982

Mustafa al-Hussein, teacher (fifteen years,
1994)

Firas Yunis (fifteen years, 1994)

Usama `Ashour al-'Askari, university student
(fifteen years, 1994)

Arrested in 1983

Ratib Sha'bu (fifteen years, 1994)

`Aziz Tabsi [or `Aziz Tassi] (fifteen years,
1994)

Arrested in 1984

Al-Harith al-Nabhan (thirteen years,
1994)

Arrested in 1987

`Umar al-Hayak (fifteen years, 1994)

Muhamed Kheir Khalaf (twelve years, 1994)

Abdallah Qabbara, lawyer (fifteen years,
1994)

Hikmat Mirjaneh (fifteen years, 1994)

Mazin Shamsin (fifteen years, 1994)

Arrested in 1989

Taysir Hassun, medical school student (eight
years, 1994)

Bassam Bedour (eight years, 1994)

Arrested in 1990

`Ammar Rizq

Date of arrest not confirmed

Abid al-Jani (twelve years, 1994)

Hussain al-Subayrani

Bakri Fahmi Sidqi

APPENDIX B

Elevation and Plan of Tadmor Prison, Drawn by
a Former Prisoner

APPENDIX C

February 1983 Military Order on Formation of
Field Courts

HIGHLY SECRET

Syrian Arab Republic

General Command of Army and Armed Forces

Division of Organization and Management

Branch of Military Management -- Department of
Military Discipline

Number/319/27/1

Date 3/5/1403 A.H.

Corresponding to 15/2/1983 A.D.

TO: Chief of Division of Intelligence

--It has been decreed to form a field court in
every area command (eastern - northern - coastal - middle) except the area of
Damascus in which two field courts exist.

--Requesting the nomination of names of the
president and the members of each court in each area, from your side, so that
the necessary instructions may be issued. Keeping in mind that we recommend that
the military [individual] judge in each area be the military prosecutor-general
of the court. And inform us.

Brigadier Jamil Hassan

Commander of the Division of Organization and
Management

APPENDIX D

Sketch of the apparatus used to hang prisoners
at Tadmor, drawn by a former prisoner for Human Rights Watch/Middle East in May
1995 in Damascus. It was configured "like the Mercedes symbol," he said.

3 The names of almost all
of these men -- many of them university students at the time of their arrest in
the 1980s -- were mentioned in our report "Syria: "The Price of Dissent."

4 Their names, dates of
arrest, and sentences are listed in Appendix A of this report.

5 Article 19(1) of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Syria has
ratified, states: "Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without
interference." Article 19(2) states: "Everyone shall have the right to freedom
of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in
writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his
choice."

6 Article 26 of the ICCPR
states: "All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any
discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law
shall prohibit any descrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and
effective protection against discrmination on any ground such as race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status."

7 Article 9(1) of the
ICCPR states in its pertinent part that: "No one shall be deprived of his
liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedure as are
established by law."

9 For information about
the trial of Nayouf and the other Syrian human rights activists, see
Middle East Watch, "Syria: Human Rights Workers on Trial," vol. 4, no. 5, March
1992.

10 In a letter to Syrian
Interior Minister Muhamed Harba dated April 1, 1995 and hand delivered to his
office in Damascus, Human Rights Watch/Middle East requested permission to visit
Nizar Nayouf in Mezze prison. The request was refused.

The ongoing imprisonment of Nizar Nayouf was the
subject of a letter to President Hafez al-Asad on January 25, 1996, by PEN
American Center, an affiliate of International PEN, the association of writers,
poets, playwrights, essayists, editors and novelists. The group urged the Syrian
president to reevaluate Nayouf's case and release him.

11 Beraqdar used this
term in a lengthy defense memorandum that he submitted to the state security
court during his trial. The court sentenced him to a fifteen-year prison term in
October 1993. In a letter to Interior Minister Muhamed Harba dated April 1, 1995
and hand-delivered to his office in Damascus, Human Rights Watch/Middle East
requested permission to visit Faraj Beraqdar at Sednaya prison, where he has
been held since May 1992. The request was refused.

On November 16, 1995, we wrote to President Asad
about the forty-three-year-old poet's health. He reportedly has been denied
proper medical care for injuries he sustained while tortured under interrogation
and is unable to walk unassisted. He has been held in Sednaya prison since May
1992. The letter went unanswered.

12 "In an attempt to pull
a veil of legality over the massacre, it was later said that the prisoners had
been condemned to death by a field tribunal with emergency powers," wrote
British author Patrick Seale in his biography of President Asad. Asad of
Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1990), p.329. For additional information,
see Middle East Watch, Syria Unmasked, Human Rights Watch Books,
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 15-16.

13 See "Summary
Justice: Military Field Court Trials," below, for additional information about
this tribunal.

14 "The Alawis, or
Nasyris, who number about 1.4 million, constitute Syria's largest religious
minority....When Christianity flourished in the Fertile Crescent, the Alawis,
isolated in their little communities, clung to their own pre-Islamic religion.
After hundreds of years of Ismaili [a sect that broke away from mainstream Shia
Islam] influence, the Alawis moved closer to Islam....For centuries, the Alawis
constituted Syria's most repressed and exploited minority. Most were indentured
servants and tenured farmers or sharecroppers working for Sunni landowners.
However, after President Assad, an Alawi, and his retinue came to power in 1970,
the well-being of the Alawis improved considerably...Because many of the tenets
of their faith are secret, Alawis have refused to discuss their faith with
outsiders." Federal Research Divison, Library of Congress, Syria: A Country
Study, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government as represented by the Secretary of
the Army, 1988), pp. 96-97.

15 See Appendix B
for a plan and elevation of the prison provided to Human Rights Watch/Middle
East in 1995 by a former prisoner whom we interviewed in Damascus.

16 A former prisoner held
at Tadmor from 1983 to 1987 said that there were about 1,000 inmates suffering
from tuberculosis during this time. "When they started to move people to Sednaya
[prison] at the end of 1987, some were left behind because they had
tuberculosis. Now there is a tuberculosis wing in Sednaya for them." Human
Rights Watch/Middle East interview, Damascus, Syria, May 1995.

17 Human Rights
Watch/Middle East interviews, Amman, Jordan, March 1995. A copy of this list is
on file at Human Rights Watch.

18 Human Rights
Watch/Middle East telephone interview, February 1994.

19 Letter from Minister
Counselor Souad M. Al-Ayoubi of the Embassy of the Syrian Arab Republic to Liane
Dorsey, U.S. Department of State, June 30, 1994.

20 Such treatment is a
violation of Article 7 of the ICCPR, which categorically prohibits torture and
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

33 The decree, in the
original Arabic and unofficial English translation, is in Appendix C of this
report.

34 These standards,
spelled out in Article 14 of the ICCPR, include the right to a fair hearing
before a competent, independent and impartial tribunal; the right to prepare a
defense and communicate with counsel of one's choice; the right to examine, or
have examined, witnesses; and the right to review of a conviction and sentence
by a higher tribunal.

35 The man's brother was
eventually released when his health deteriorated significantly. Human Rights
Watch/Middle East interview, Damascus, Syria, April 1995.

36 Each prisoner had his
own blindfold to wear when outside the dormitory.

39 Hama, the fourth
largest city in Syria, was one of the centers of political opposition during the
turbulent late 1970s and early 1980s. Political violence by the state and armed
opposition groups claimed hundreds of lives in April 1981 and thousands during
the uprising in February and March 1982. See Middle East Watch, Syria
Unmasked, pp. 17-21.

There were no claims of responsibility for the
acts of political violence that shook Syria in March and April 1986.
"Syria...came under terrorist attack which it variously blamed on Iraq, on
Israeli agents from Lebanon, on the Muslim Brothers, and on the CIA. On 13 March
1986 there was a massive car bomb explosion in central Damascus, the opening
shot in a terrorist campaign which seemed designed to destabilize Asad's regime.
On 16 April, the day after the US attack on Libya, bombs on trucks and trains in
different parts of Syria killed no fewer than 144 people and wounded many more.
It may not have been unconnected that in late 1985 the NSC's Colonel Oliver
North and Amiram Nir, Peres's counter-terrorism expert, set up a dirty tricks
outfit to strike back at the alleged sponsors of Middle East terrorism." Asad
of Syria, The Struggle for the Middle East, pp. 473-74.

45 See plan of
Tadmor in Appendix B for the location of nadweh dormitory.

46 Human Rights
Watch/Middle East interview, 1995. Date and place of interview withheld by Human
Rights Watch to protect the identity of this eyewitness.

47 See Article 14
of the ICCPR.

48 Article 6(1) states:
"Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected
by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." Article 6(2) states:
"In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may
be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force
at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of
the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a
final judgement rendered by a competent court." Emphasis added.

49 The bodies of some
prisoners have been returned to their families, albeit without explanation by
authorities of the circumstances of death. See "The Need for
Accountability," below, for the case of Ahmad Khoula, whose body was returned to
his family in October 1994.

50 Rule 44(3) of the U.N.
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners states: "Every prisoner
shall have the right to inform at once his family of his imprisonment or his
transfer to another institution." Rule 37 states: "Prisoners shall be allowed
under necessary supervision to communicate with their family and reputable
friends at regular intervals, both by correspondence and by receiving
visits."

51 "Military Security is
a branch of the regular armed forces....Though its primary focus is the armed
forces, the agency has arrested many civilians over the years, especially in the
period 1980 to 1982." Middle East Watch, Syria Unmasked, p. 53.